"Mongolia is kind of close, right?" Story about an attempt to ski everywhere in the world where there's snow. And in some places where there isn't. On and off-piste skiing on all continents, skiing into craters of live volcanoes, caving, climbing, photography, and travel.

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Mätikkä Cave Destruction

We had a disturbing visit to a cave today. Somebody had not only blocked access to this cave, but also smeared vaseline all over the cave, spread broken glass, and so on. Sigh.

The Mätikkä cave in Masku, southern Finland, is an interesting cave that begins under a cliff, continues in a system of cracks, and has a number of exits, including one on the top of the cliff. We first learned about this cave from the Retkipaikka article.

We had read about the disturbances, but had not realised how bad they were. The place was not just disturbed with garbage, access was completely blocked, and significant parts of the cave were smeared with vaseline and some other substances (maybe horseshit, or some other brown substance) and broken glass was spread around.

Signs were also posted around the cave, claiming that access is prohibited to protect insects, butterflies and other nature the in the cave. Well, I'm not entirely sure that smearing the cave with vaseline will help the nature a lot.

It would seem to me that it is a crime to spread oil products into nature. And everyman's right grants access to the nature in Finland, so signs and blockage seems to be against that too. The cave also has a potential cave painting, making it crime to disturb such a historic site. See also the note at the geocaching site, I wonder if a police report has been filed about the situation?